December 16, 1992

College Student Sprays Campus With an Assault Rifle, Killing 2

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

REAT BARRINGTON, Mass., Dec. 15 -- An honors student armed with an assault rifle he bought Monday morning sprayed a college campus near here with bullets that night, the police said, killing two people and injuring four others before surrendering.

Police spokesmen said the student, 18-year-old Wayne Lo of Billings, Mont., lugged a modified AK-47 assault rifle through the snowy Berkshire mountains campus of Simon's Rock College and opened fire around 9:30 P.M. A professor of Spanish and an 18-year-old student were killed. A security guard was shot twice in the stomach and is in critical condition. Three other students were injured.

Mr. Lo, who telephoned the police to turn himself in after the shootings, appeared in Berkshire County District Court today with a shaved head and wearing a shirt that read, "Sick of It All." There he was charged with two counts of murder, four counts of assault with intent to commit murder and four counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.

After pleading not guilty to all the charges, he was ordered held without bail at the Berkshire County House of Corrections.

Neither the police nor college authorities had an explanation for Mr. Lo's actions. But Mishka Shubaly, a 15-year-old student who said he knew the defendant, said Mr. Lo was a "hateful person" who was angry at a society that made him feel like an outcast. 'He Hated Everybody'

"Everybody sort of knew he hated everybody," said Mr. Shubaly, who is from Kingston, N.H. "But everybody just wrote him off as another tough guy. Nobody thought he would actually get a gun."

College officials said Mr. Lo had no record of disciplinary problems, and his mother, Lin-Lin Lo, told The Associated Press that when she had visited him on Dec. 5 he did not seem to be upset.

"He was totally O.K.," Mrs. Lo said.

Law-enforcement officials said Mr. Lo bought the rifle, a Chinese-made SKS similar to an AK-47 assault rifle, over the counter at a gun store in nearby Pittsfield. They said that the ammunition was probably bought by mail and that at least nine rounds were fired.

The sequence of the shootings is not clear, but shots were fired at the college entrance where the security guard, 42-year-old Teresa Beavers, was shot. Shots were also fired near the college library and a dormitory.

A college official who spoke on condition of anonymity said it appeared that the victims were selected at random. The professor who was killed, Nacunan Saez, a native of Argentina who taught Spanish, is not known to have ever had Mr. Lo as a student. Galen Gibson, an 18-year-old student from Gloucester, Mass., was shot and killed as he left the library.

The students who were injured are Matthew David, 18, of Montclair, N.J.; Joshua Faber, 15, of Pittsford, N.Y., and Thomas McElderry, 19, of Kotzebue, Alaska. They are in stable condition at a local hospital. Described as Polite

Simon's Rock is an alternative college for high-school-age students, many of whom have dropped out of high school. It is affiliated with Bard College, about 50 miles away in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y.

Mr. Lo, whose father, Chia-Wei Lo, owns The Great Wall Chinese Restaurant in Billings, is in his second year at Simon's Rock and has not declared a major. He attended Central Catholic High School in Billings, where he played violin in the school orchestra and had a 3.56 grade point average for his two years at the school before transferring here.

April Collidge, manager of the family's restaurant, described Wayne Lo as friendly and polite.

After the shootings, college officials officially ended the semester and urged the 320 students -- some of whom are as young as 14 --to leave the campus and go home. Because the district attorney's office had closed off the dormitories, the students had to leave without packing.